On Skeletal Structure and the Nature of Identity

[kiya]

I found myself thinking of that argument on rasfc a while back (was it really a few months ago? I'm not sure), the whole what is identity and not, and the claim that changes to the body don't change the sense of identity, unlike changes to the mental process.

I spent this weekend far more dependent on my cane than is normal for me even when I am using it. (Usually I need it for a day or two and then I'm more or less okay. This weekend I needed it to climb up the steep slopes of curb cuts.)

And one of the things that drove me completely bats about that dependency, about the limitation of the pain, was this steady persistent awareness that this is not me. And I don't have the identity I had as a child, when I could do nothing, be nothing, that did not run, but damnit, I can walk. That hurt, sometimes, more than the pain.

My mother tells me that my brother could never have riding lessons like I did as a child because his hip went weird on him too easily. And muses about her need for a hip replacement.

Who am I, in the bone?

Comments

[luellon.livejournal.com]

I tried not to define myself by the limitations of my severely lacking in the seeing department. I've had hard contacts since I was 1 and a half. I wouldn't allow myself to be removed from gym class when they had balls involved. I can't catch really well since I don't have depth perception. But I didn't want to be limited. Dammit. Of course, that doesn't help because now I'm skittish around balls.

A year ago, I finally have glasses that work with the one eye I can see out of. They're not as good as contacts, but my eyes haven't been liking contacts for the past couple of years so, then doc said glasses.

It was a weird shift.

I find though I like glasses better. I don't have to clean them everyday and night. I don't have lose them inside my eyeball and pry them out.

I can just put them on and go.

Heh.

Chants: I am not my disability.